BARBARA NAGY: DARK FOREST, DARK WATER

DARK FOREST, DARK WATER Works by Barbara Nagy

“The question of painting concerns visibility itself, and thus pertains everything – to sensation in general,”1 Jean-Luc Marion points out in The Crossing of Visible. My black carved wood panels explore vision and visibility. While black absorbs light, it can also reveal it through the structure of the carving. In the three rooms of the exhibition, I present my inquiries into visibility, differences in preception, and the intersections of nature and art. The Almost Nothing (Szinte semmi) series investigates the problems of vision by experimenting with the perception-perceptablity of various layers of black ink. In the installation titled Dark Forest (Sötét erdő), a forest of drawing charcoals refers simultaneously to the destruction of nature, to an essential substance which is a building block of life, and to protection as a fundamental function of art – the charcoal sticks surround tree branches, reinforcing and thickening them. With the waves of the water and its timeless blackness, the video and installation titled Black Sea (Fekete tenger) echo the works in the Almost Nothing series in the first room, marking a return to the questions around painting and visibility.

1. Jean-Luc Marion: La Croisée du visible, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1996; English translation (The Crossing of Visible) by K. A. Smith, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004.

Opening: 10th of September, 2025, Wednesday, 6 p.m.

Opening speech byLászló F. FöldényiArt theorist

On view: 11th of September – 22nd of October, 2025

Opening hours: Tuesday-Friday: 2-6 pm or by appointment

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